


bastard cobas

by SpicyReyes



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: M/M, Plants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-24 09:18:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19170322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpicyReyes/pseuds/SpicyReyes
Summary: It was, without a doubt, the ugliest plant Crowley had ever seen.





	bastard cobas

**Author's Note:**

> so i watched good omens,,, heres some gay shit  
> this is one of 3 plot ideas I had so. Expect more lmao

It was, without a doubt, the ugliest plant Crowley had ever seen. 

It looked as though someone had taken ginger roots and shoved them halfway into a dirt-filled pot, and then those roots had sprouted a few fleshy leaves and a bunch of berry-like buds that drooped low over the side. 

“It’s a Namibian Grape,” Aziraphale told him, happily, with the little self-satisfied smile he got when he provided someone with a particularly rare book in his shop. 

_ It’s an abomination,  _ Crowley wanted to say - or, no, he really  _ didn’t,  _ or he would have. What he wanted was for something to somehow communicate that to Aziraphale  _ without _ him having to speak it, in a way that was preferably rather gentle on his friend, because this was clearly important to him. 

“...You got me a plant?” he asked, instead, deeming it a safer route. Polite refusal of a gift was a thing, right? Surely, whomever shoved this plant off on Aziraphale would have a better use for it elsewhere?

“Ah, yes, well,” Aziraphale said, looking down at the pot in his hands. “You...It’s rather different, I know, and the whole thing is over with now, but…”

Crowley’s heart sank.

“You saved that book from my shop, when it burned,” Aziraphale said, quietly. 

“We needed it,” Crowley defended immediately. 

“You didn’t  _ know  _ that, though,” Aziraphale said, suddenly sharp, looking back up at Crowley defiantly. “You didn’t take it from the shop to find Adam. You thought I was  _ dead _ and you  _ saved my book.”  _

“So,” Crowley said, voice almost hoarse, “you got me...a plant.”

“My books are very important to me,” Aziraphale said. “I wanted to get you something that was important to  _ you,  _ but your interests are so  _ limited,  _ and I don’t understand cars, and you have plenty of sunglasses, and you have frankly abysmal taste in music, so...I thought, ‘well, he rather likes his plants, doesn’t he?’ And I saw an article about this one in a gardening magazine with the most peculiar heading, and I thought it would be brilliant.”

“Peculiar heading?” Crowley echoed weakly, choosing to fixate on the least horrifying part of this revelation. 

“You should research the plant,” Aziraphale said, a glint in his eye. “It has many names. Namibian Grape, Tree Grape,  _ Cyphostemma juttae -  _ it had a rather fitting nickname I thought you might fancy.”

“Yeah,” Crowley said, barely processing, eyes locked on the plant.

It was still hideous. It looked like a very sick rubber tree crossbred with a giant mushroom. ‘Grape’ was a generous name to give the things that looked more like strawberry raisins. 

If he sat this with his other plants, they would get the impression that this was an acceptable standard for appearance. 

_ Settled, then,  _ Crowley said.  _ It can’t go anywhere near my plants. Not even in view.  _

That decided, Crowley reached out, accepting the pot, and started in on deconstructing his mental image of his flat to figure out where the hell he was going to keep this thing. 

  
  
  


Crowley left the pot at the door when he got back to his flat, firmly out of sight, as he rearranged his existing plants to ensure that none of them were in - or within view of - his office. Once he was satisfied that agricultural abominations could be safely hidden within, he retrieved the plant, setting it on the ground just beside his desk. 

From most angles, the desk blocked the bulk of the plant. With just the leaves and berries showing, it was almost a passable looking plant. It was very clearly dehydrated, though, and he dreaded to think what sort of subpar nursery Aziraphale had fished it out of. 

It was a succulent, though, not a standard houseplant, so he couldn’t water it too heavily. He really didn’t know what he  _ could  _ do with it, though, so he devoted an evening to taking Aziraphale’s advice and looking the damn thing up.

Apparently, it’s alternate name was  _ bastard cobas.  _

_ That’s the issue with Aziraphale,  _ Crowley thought to himself, reading that.  _ He thinks he’s  _ funny.

  
  
  


The plant turned out to be a massive pain in the ass.

First of all, its pot was almost as ugly as it was, so that had to go. Second, according to his research, the soil it had been planted in was all wrong, which was probably more to blame for the shabby appearance of the leaves and berries than his assumed under-watering. 

This found him spending a Sunday laying out a tarp on his floor and using it as a workspace to painstakingly repot a massive eyesore of a tree. 

“I’ll have you know,” Crowley said, churning soil between his fingers in the new pot to work in the bone meal he’d been tipped would help, “that I do not tolerate poor growth. You’ve been very clearly neglected, so no fault to you, there, but I expect  _ dramatic _ improvement after all this effort.”

He glanced sideways at the plant, still waiting in its substandard pot. 

“But for fuck’s sake, you’re a disaster,” he breathed. “Wouldn’t have you at all if it weren’t for Aziraphale. Well, I mean, obviously, he gave you to me, but I mean- Well. Wouldn’t have accepted you from anyone else.”

He pulled his hand free of the pot, staring at the soil-stained fingers.

“You see, my dear  _ bastard cobas... _ As ugly as you are, I’d much rather look at  _ you  _ than Aziraphale’s disappointed face.” He turned to face the plant, as though imploring it to empathize with him. “It’s dreadful, that face. He’s always smiling, y’know, just a little, and so when he  _ stops-  _ Changes his whole face, it does. Makes you feel perfectly horrible.”

With a heavy sigh, Crowley moved, plunging his fingers into the old pot to ever-so-gently detangle roots from their position in disgustingly plain soil.

“You’re probably from a department store,” Crowley sneered at the plant, as he transferred it over. “I wouldn’t be surprised if that pot was full of Miracle Grow.”

The plant, infuriatingly, did not respond. 

  
  
  


To Crowley’s relief, the plant responded well to the repotting. The shriveled pink buds of its ‘grapes’ filled out to actually almost resemble their namesake, and sprouted in earnest at a few different positions on the plant. The leaves lost their artificial look and instead became soft and slightly pale green. The bark of the tree peeled a bit, revealing a much healthier layer that looked a bit less deformed, turning the ‘ginger root’ look into more of a ‘heavily disfigured birch tree.’ 

The improvement was so satisfying, in fact, that Crowley decided the plant could move from its place of shame, shoved against the desk out of view, to a proper spot by the window.

(The other plants were still very carefully not allowed to see this plant, though. He was showing very heavily preferential treatment to it, and even if the other plants were able to understand that this behavior was not acceptable for them to imitate, that could paint a rather unfair image of what sort of plant owner Crowley was. It wasn’t  _ their  _ fault they’d been grown by the man directly, and not received as well-intended but poorly executed gifts from certain angels that Crowley was particularly hard pressed to deny anything.)

The move was made all the more worth it when Aziraphale dropped by - a rare treat - and paused in the middle of the room, beaming at the plant.

“Wow,” he breathed out. “It looks much better, doesn’t it? Oh, I knew you’d be good for it. The kind shopgirl was rather certain it was doomed, but I thought, Crowley can most certainly manage to save it. Your plants are all so beautiful.” 

Crowley had many things he could have chosen to address, there. There was the admission that Aziraphale had bought the sorriest looking plant  _ deliberately,  _ for starters. There was also the faith in Crowley’s willingness and ability to restore a plant close to death to proper houseplant standard. 

Or, most importantly, there was the compliment. 

“Don’t say that too loudly,” he told Aziraphale. “You’ll give them  _ ideas.”  _

“What ideas?” Aziraphale countered. “That they’re perfectly lovely? You’re so harsh to them, Crowley, they are brilliant little things. They can’t help if they get sick sometimes, can they? How would you like it if someone shouted at you for getting a cold?”

“I can’t get a cold, I’m a demon,” Crowley reminded him. “And  _ leaf spots  _ are not  _ colds.”  _

Aziraphale shook his head, but seemed to deem the argument not to be worth it, because when he spoke again, it was with a question. “Why is it in here by itself, anyway?”

“Just because it looks  _ better  _ doesn’t mean it looks  _ good.”  _

Aziraphale turned to him, blinking, lips parted in a slight ‘ _ o’  _ of shock.

“I just mean,” Crowley rushed to explain, “Well, it’s still sick, isn’t it? The office is a bit of an...intensive care unit, at the moment. Can’t go exposing it to the pressures I’d put on a healthy plant, can I?” 

Aziraphale’s lips curled into a tiny, pleased smile. “You’re showing that bit of kindness, again.”

Crowley could have retorted that Aziraphale giving him the plant in the first place had been a show of his inner evil, as well, but that would require ruining all the work he’d put into the damn thing, and he was committed now.

Instead, he simply replied, “Yeah, well, it better not get used to it.”

  
  
  


Two months of Aziraphale's prompting later, Crowley caved, and the plant was at last introduced to its peers. 

"The bastard plant's rescued from a department store nursery," Crowley told them, despite having never technically confirmed that was true, "so don't go thinking it has the same expectations to live up to as the rest of you. If I've had you from a seedling, you better damn well look like it."

Oddly, the plants seemed to respond well to the presence of the new plant. Perhaps having proof of Crowley's capacity for empathy encouraged them. Perhaps Crowley's near obsessive tending of the ugly little plant Aziraphale had gifted him had the side effect of him caring better for each of his plants. Regardless of reason, the plants flourished, leaves shining vibrant green, stems healthy, not a spot or wilt to be seen. 

He was so pleased with this unforeseen turn of events that he was only slightly horrified when Aziraphale called and informed him that, for Christmas, he was going to do the very blasphemous thing of getting Crowley a gift, which he assured the demon would be another plant. 

He rehearsed his denial over and over for the full day, so that by the time Aziraphale arrived, he felt he could have recited it in his sleep. 

_ I appreciate the thought,  _ he'd start,  _ but the plants have only just now managed to get along alright, and I simply can't go adding any new ones in. Terribly sorry. _

And then he'd give Aziraphale the ancient copy of Herodotus'  _ The Histories _ that he  _ may  _ have stolen from a museum, obtained for vague reasons unrelated to any religious holidays, and their whole encounter would be complete. 

To his surprise, though, Aziraphale did not give him any time to deny him before the plant was shown. The second Crowley opened the door, it was to his friend's blinding smile, his offered plant pinched in his fingers and held up above their heads. 

Crowley was fairly certain that he was not going to be able to revive the mistletoe, but he supposed that had not been the point. 


End file.
